Maintenance
by KatsyKat
Summary: Ever wonder what would happen if Winry snapped when she found out who murdered her parents? Anime-based. What would she do? How would Ed deal? Heavy ANGST. Insinuated EdWin. COMPLETE! Can Ed make it in time to stop Winry from her path of destruction?
1. Shocking News

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Summary: Ever wonder what would happen if Winry snapped and actually went through with trying to kill the man who murdered her parents? Heavy angst. Implied Edwin. No bashing, but expect severe oocness.

My first attempt at Full Metal Alchemist. This is set after anime episode 36 when Winry returns to Central after she finds out from the Isbala children that the flame alchemist killed her parents.

POV – Edward Elric

_chapter 1: Shocking News_

* * *

Something kept nagging me in the back of my mind as Al and I watched the Train depart from the military camp, on it's way to Central. Something about Winry, and the smile that wasn't quite a smile. 

Winry never faked smiles... she'd sooner throw a wrench in anger. She wasn't a deceitful person. So, what would make her hide whatever had happened?

I considered this for a few moments.

However, as the train rolled out of sight, so did my ability to focus on anything other than the philosopher's stone and our quest to find it. With a clear conscious born of the narrow minded determination that had gotten me this far, I started up the ridiculously fast green tractor and took off with it barely under my control.

If I'd realized then, what I knew now... for sure I could have changed something.

But, as was ever my curse, it is only after I can no longer change an event, that I see how, with only a little effort, or foresight, I could have.

* * *

"That can't be!" Al's unsure voice broke me out of the daze I'd been in since Lt. Hawkeye informed us that Winry had been tried and found guilty for attempted murder of Cl. Mustang. She was scheduled to be executed in under a months time. It was a speed unheard of, even by military court standards. 

"Take me to her." I said, my voice surprisingly steady despite the shaking fists at my side. My thoughts raced so fast and in so many directions, I couldn't keep track.

The most prevalent feeling was one I was far too accustomed to: guilt. I knew I was partly responsible for Winry's actions. I had never told her what I knew of her parents' murder... I knew something was off when she wanted to return to Central so quickly after fighting to prove her usefulness and help Al and I with our quest.

I... there was so much I had never done for the girl who had done everything she could for me. And now the desire to protect her was my driving force.

I saw the hard look cross the Lt's features as she prepared to deny my request to see Winry.

"I don't care how you do it, but I WILL see her." I raved. My eyes of steel must have been more effective than I could have hoped for, considering my emotional turmoil, because I immediately watched her face crumple.

I slowly realized that considering her proximity to Mustang, this was probably not the best person to ask, before she abated my concern.

"I might be able to bring you... but I couldn't manage Al."

Like most people, she avoided looking at my brother, even when the conversation related directly to him. The fact that he was known as the more reasonable of the two of us, didn't make his tantrums any less feared.

I also understood that Al's lack of expression disturbed people, because it unnerved even me from time to time.

I, knowing what to watch for, saw the slump on his shoulders and the tightening of his fists. My heart cried out to him. How many times would he be held back by his current form... first the state alchemy test, the heat ducts at the 5th laboratory, Greed's kidnapping, ... how long would this go on until I could give back what I'd been responsible for him losing?

I tried to lay that familiar mantle of responsibility aside for the moment. Winry was what was important right now.

Slowly Al nodded his consent, and I understood that he did not trust his voice.

Knowing he couldn't feel the warmth of my hand, did not stop me from placing a comforting hand over his arm. Perhaps, I needed to feel the cold steel of his body more than he needed my touch.

Without saying anything, I turned to the Lieutenant and we begin our trek down the hall to death row.

_tbc..._

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Reviews are appreciated - no matter how short. And constructive critisism is asked for and welcomed!


	2. Down Death Row

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Chapter 2 - Down Death Row

* * *

Lieutenant Hawkeye's footsteps were even as we strolled down the hall to Winry's cell. In comparison I couldn't help but notice the slightly more hollow sounding thud of my automail leg against the tile floor. 

I didn't want to ask, but the Lt. seemed to understand that I needed to know what happened before I faced my childhood friend. And so she began speaking, her voice made louder by the silence it shattered.

"Winry Rockbell requested a meeting with the Colonel upon her arrival to Central three weeks ago." The Lieutenant's report was clipped and to the point. No doubt in a tone she had used in mission briefings for years. "However, it wasn't until the last day the colonel was scheduled to be in Central, when she requested again, that she was finally granted an audience." The Lieutenant's face hardened for a second before she added, almost as an afterthought. "Nobody thought to check her for a weapon."

"Where did she get..." I started to ask. As if the little details even mattered.

"I would seem she retrieved one from Hughes home, where she was staying. Grace is still not sure where she found it, but there's no doubt it was once the Lt's weapon."

I bowed my head as I continued following Hawkeye.

"No one is sure what was said, as there are no recording devices, and she would not divulge. However, less than 10 minutes after she was granted an audience, there was a single gunshot. Guards rushed the room, to find Winry holding a gun with both her and Mustangs prints on it, while Mustang lie, unconscious from a gunshot wound to the head. He's in a coma," She hesitated before adding. "but they don't expect him to ever wake up."

Logically I knew I was upset by the man's condition. It was far worse than if he'd been killed outright, I understood. But I couldn't spare even a speck of feelings – I was all tied up thinking about Winry.

"By grabbing the gun when he did, just before the shot when off, he prevented himself from dieing, but from science to alchemy, there is nothing that can be done. Given the overwhelming evidence, and Winry's confession there wasn't much need for an investigation. They treated the case as a murder trial, given his outlook."

The hard tone of her voice betrayed her agreement with this course of action. I didn't have the energy to be angry with her for it.

"I don't understand why he didn't use alchemy..." I mumbled.

Hawkeye stopped a moment in the middle of the hall, as if what I'd said shocked her. Then she bowed her head and slowly continued walking. I almost missed her whispered phrase.

"He knew you'd be upset if he hurt her."

My shock at the statement was immeasurable. Would Mustang really choose death over hurting someone becuase of me?

My ponderings over the Colonel's motivations were brief, as my thoughts traveled back to my blonde childhood friend.

Hawkeye and I went through several security checkpoints, and I didn't hear the Lieutenants response to any of them. My head was abuzz... random images of Winry and Al and I as children kept invading my attempts to think about the situation logically.

As I neared her cell, I wondered what I could possibly say to her. What could I offer her?

I could break her out. It would be hard, but I could do it. Al would help without a question.

But what then? What would there be for her, but running and hiding? She probably couldn't even work on her precious automail, because of the attention it would inevitably get her.

And it would be simple to ascertain who had helped her escape. So Al and I would be fugitives as well. A sacrifice I was more than willing to make, but it made our goal of returning Al to his rightful body so much harder.

Besides, would she even be willing to escape? She had killed a man. Planned it and executed it. What state would her mind be in? She was always very fragile minded. The first to cry...

Or was that just me, wanting to think of her as such, so I didn't rely on her more than I had to?

So many questions of what to ask, what to not ask, and how to act swirled through my mind, as I neared the end of the hall that would lead me to her cell.

It occurred to me as I approached, that the Lieutenant had allowed me to continue on my own. Although grateful, I couldn't fathom her reasoning amidst the train wreck that was my thought process.

The only thing I was sure of is that I would not ask Winry why she did it.

That would be insulting. I knew why, just as surely as I knew that it was part of the reason I never told her the identity of her parents' murderer.

No – that's not entirely true. I never imagined she'd go so far. I mean, after all it was Winry, we were talking about.

She was too timid for something like this.

Too pure to stain her hands.

Too logical to allow her emotions to get the best of her.

Too kind to kill when the end result would not accomplish anything.

It occurred to me, as I saw her calm face through the bars of her cell for the first time, that I didn't know Winry at all. The realization made me feel even more guilty. Who didn't know their closest childhood friend?

Someone who had let a lot of other things get in the way of that.

Someone who didn't deserve to be called a friend at all.

With that thought weighing me down, I reached the center of the last and only occupied cell. I suppressed a shiver as I sat in the stool next to the cell and prepared myself to look in the eyes of my best friend and listen to her tale of murder.

_tbc..._


	3. Confrontation

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Chapter 3 - Confrontation

* * *

The late evening sun was not quite setting, but the fading rays coming in through the tiny window in the back of the cell made the rest of the place dark by comparison. The tiny bulb alit in the center of the cell did nothing to combat the darkness, creeping in. 

Winry still sat in her cell. Her complexion was pale despite her composed expression. Her resigned posture made her appear not real. The Winry I knew what always full of energy – bouncing off the walls to the point of annoyance most times.

This ghost of Winry gave me a sad smile.

"I didn't think I'd get to see you before..." she trailed off, unable to bring up the fact of her upcoming execution.

"Winry... I... I."

I bitter smile crossed her lips. "They wouldn't let Al come?" she asked, ignoring my stuttering.

I shook my head, the words stuck in my throat.

"It's probably better for him." She said calmly, as if we were discussing the weather. Then she tilted her head. "So how's the search coming? Find any new leads? Been to any interesting places?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it like a fish. She was asking about our search for the stone?...

She was here.

In a cell.

Weeks away from being executed, and she was asking about us?!? Of all the things I expected her to say, this was the least likely. Was she really going to pretend that nothing had happened?

Misreading my shocked silence, Winry continued.

"That's ok. I really didn't expect you to tell me." She said in a dismissing tone. "you never do, anyway. Couldn't hurt to try, one last time..." she trailed off.

And that was all it took. The audacity of her... Winry blatantly avoiding something, so huge... pushing it off by asking about us, made me angry. More than angry – I was livid.

"What the HELL?!?" I managed, my anger finally loosening my tongue. "What do you mean by that?!?"

She looked at me like a school teacher who had a really slow student; a mix of frustration and resignation. "Just what I said." She sighed, "Just what I said." She looked like she were about to cry for a second and then in a blink it was gone. "It must be nice to always have your brother always with you... to never be lonely."

"Is THAT why you," I trailed off, my voice was barely more than a whisper anyway. I could tell by Winry's vacant expression that her attention was somewhere else. And I listened to her whispered declaration with growing desperation.

"You have no idea. ...How alone I was when they died."

"But you..."

"Oh sure granny Pinako was there..." Winry gave a weak smile and she began threading her fingers in her lap, "but my parents had made me feel like somebody special. They made me feel so cherished... and loved.

"When they left, it was like the first bad thing in a list of bad things that happened." She continued as if I weren't even there. And perhaps I wasn't – I will admit I wanted to be anywhere but here in this cell listening to her talk as if she were already dead.

"You and Al never saw anyone but yourselves... When we were really little, even though we were together all the time I always felt like it was me against the two of you."

I opened my mouth to object, but I couldn't feel justified discrediting the truth.

"And then when my parents died and you learned you couldn't fix everything with your precious alchemy – you left me all alone to deal with it."

I remembered the day she was talking about. When Pinako scolded Al and I for suggesting we could transmute her parents. I remembered how scared I was, not that Winry was alone, but that Al and I could be. Just like that. That OUR mother might die, and we couldn't bring her back.

Why hadn't it occurred to me then that Winry was facing that fear... alone? That we left her to it?

"And then after your mother died, when we should have gotten closer... you started keeping secrets, you and Al. You were both so serious all the time and never wanted to play anymore." Her fingers continued to flutter against her hands as if trapped.

"But... at least you were still around, in school in stuff." She sighed, "Until one day you weren't. And you didn't even tell anyone when you left..." I could hear the pain amplified in her voice, as if making up for all the times I hadn't noticed.

"You didn't even tell me." She whispered, "I was so alone... I always have been."

No longer able to take the raw sorrow etched in her voice, I tried to reason with her. There was going to be no helping her if I couldn't get her to see what life had to offer. She was already talking like she'd be better off dead.

"But Winry we've seen you lots of times over the past few years..."

"You NEVER call unless you need me to fix your stupid arm or leg!" She yelled, her skin suddenly flushed with anger. Her sparkling eyes, still a haunting shadow of themselves.

The truth stung. And even more than that, hearing her call her precious Automail stupid... did something to the inside of my stomach that I wouldn't think it could do and still be attached.

Automail was her pride and joy. What she cared about more than anything in the world... or so I thought. That illusion was shattered the moment she opened her mouth next.

"You never even knew how devastated I was when you left! How insignificant to your bigger plan. How easily discarded. Even after I tried so hard to be... useful." She chuckled, a harsh bitter sound.

"Winry, you were..."

"Never enough for you!" There was a moment of silence before she continued in a quiet voice, "Did you never wonder, WHY I chose to get involved with automail?" Her eyes searched mine, and I tried desperately to hold in my surprise at the question.

Of course I had never… and I realized that was the problem. She hadn't been interested in it when she was little… she wanted to be… a doctor, I think – like her parents. So why should she… she amswered her own question before I could even formulate a hypothesis.

"It was because of YOU. I had some misguided idea, and since it was likely you'd need them the rest of your life it could be something we could share... but, you never wanted anything to do with it, except to use it until you got your own limbs back. No matter how hard I worked... my automail was never good enough. Even when I worked so hard... studying... training with other mechanics... you could still never accept it. It... I was never good enough for you."

I opened my mouth to tell her how wrong she was, but she never gave me the change, she barreled on with a bomb.

"I loved you, you know? Both of you are precious to me, but... I really loved you."

Loved?... as in did, but doesn't anymore? The pain in my chest was immediate. I had nothing to say. I didn't know. I had no idea she felt this way. And I had no way to combat it.

I had never thought about love. Never had time.

I knew Winry was always in my thoughts... well, after alchemy,

and the philosophers stone,

and Al,

and missing my mom,

and hating my dad,

and fearing my sensei...

and ok I suppose she was pretty far down on my list of things I paid constant attention. But no longer. It was NOT too late. I would NOT allow myself to get drug down by her past tense of everything!

I tried to push the guilt aside... depressing thoughts weren't going to help right now. I tried for reason. I needed to find out why she did it. Why she killed the colonel... no not why, how she did. I felt like if only I knew that, I could figure out what to do

"I... can't... I just don't understand... how you..." my tangled thoughts betrayed me and Winry cut in. Her speech wooden, as if said so many times the meaning had been lost.

"I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go through with it, you know." She sat motionless. "The entire trip – I went back and forth... can I do it? Would I be strong enough?"

I sat, silent, afraid to say anything. This... this was a different person sitting before me, calmly discussing murdering another human being. Just days before, ok maybe a few weeks, she had been arguing about how Al couldn't take a life, and that was because it was the right thing to do. This just couldn't be the girl I'd grown up with. The difference was mind-boggling.

"By the time I was able to find one of Hayes guns in his house, I was almost too late. I heard that the Great Flame Alchemist was being dispatched the following day. But, as luck would have it – he was in the office when the secretary took my call. He must have recognized my name..." her eyes glazed over again, "He picked up the line, and invited me over. I almost felt like he was expecting me. Like he was glad I was going to end it." Her dreamy expression seemed better suited to a girl describing her first date, rather than murder.

"Winry, I can understand that you felt..."

"Don't you DARE!" Winry pointed a finger at me and yelled with more emotion that she had shown the entire time I had been there. "Don't you dare tell me how I felt! You... you don't even know me! Not, who I am today! You stopped knowing me, the minute your mom got sick. Not that you weren't self-absorbed before that – but that's the last time you spared a glance my way that wasn't followed by a request to make, replace, or upgrade your precious automail!"

I opened my mouth to retort, but found I had none. The weight of my guilt was suffocating.

She was right, as she so often was.

And I was wrong, as I always seemed to be when it came to her... or Al: the only two people I cared about. Still, I had to try, because she wasn't right about this. It was wrong to take a human life. But it was ok to make a mistake. If she could just see it as a mistake...

"Winry, what could you hope to accomplish? You knew that wouldn't just let you waltz out of there, after..." I couldn't even finish saying it. It was too unreal. Winry had no such problems.

"After I killed him?" She looked me dead in the eye before saying much more quietly. "Maybe I was looking for the end."

I opened my mouth to tell her to stop talking like that. Like she really was going to die, but her next statement stopped my cold.

"You haven't asked me why yet." Her accusation was as clear as her sharp eyes. "You knew before this."

Caught off-guard, I almost asked what she was talking about. But suddenly it clicked in my head. The only thing she could be talking about. That Mustang had been responsible for her parents' death in the Isabal War.

And, she was not wrong, I had known. Marcus had told Al and I what seemed like ages ago.

My eyes must have betrayed me, because she slumped. "Of course you did. It was probably well-known military knowledge and you didn't even think to tell me... the real reason they died." Her face crumpled as she threaded her fidgeting fingers together tightly.

"It wasn't like that." I tried to explain, but realized the explanation sounded more like an excuse than a made-up one would. Dejected, I trailed off. It hurt to realize that Winry was just another one of the people who didn't trust me because of my position as a State Alchemist.

What stung more was the fact that I couldn't blame her. She had every reason to blame me for withholding the information.

I desperately needed a different approach, and I was running out of ideas. I tried to appeal to her love for her parents.

"Do you think your parents would want to have your hands stained in blood on their behalf?"

"DON'T you DARE talk about them like you know them!" Winry screamed – her hands came flying apart and fisted at her sides, shaking in anger.

Ok... from bad to worse. Try to calm her, try to make her see reason.

"I'm sorry." I shook my head, "I just can't see what could be gained..."

"Oh, I'm sure an accomplished alchemist like you couldn't understand!" Sarcasim dripped from her voice. It was a strange time to realize I'd never seen her act quite this sarcastic before. "I wasn't looking for your equal exchange bullshit. His death didn't equal theirs... I just couldn't stand the idea that he was praised and rewarded for the murders he committed. I couldn't stand to see him living his dreams, when my parents' dreams were gone. So I decided to take from him, what he took from them. It's equivalent enough for me."

Shocked, I could only sit and stare at the woman in the cell who had grown from a girl I cherished.

I could sense her frustration with my silence, but it was difficult to break it. Was I doomed only to make everything worse with each word? I tried to keep my voice steady.

"Winry, how did you..."

"Shoot him?" she asked. "It was actually really easy." The spaced-out expression returned. "I thought it would be harder... but when he admitted how he was just following orders... he was just so calm... I hated him so much more for that." Tears welled up in her eyes for the first time.

"And when he saw how upset I was, he lunged at me..." she turned to me, her eyes shining but her face dry, "Pulling the trigger was the easiest decision I've ever made. It was almost like he did it on purpose to help... and when he died..."

"He didn't..."

"He's as good as dead, and we both know it, so stop splitting hairs with me!" Winry cut me off once again.

I wanted to yell at her to stop. Tell her that it was enough, she didn't have to say anything anymore. It didn't matter. But it was what I came to hear, wasn't it?

"The look on his face... he wasn't surprised at all... just peaceful."

OH I was so fucked. How was I going to get her out of here when she didn't even seem to want to leave? How could I convince her... convince her of what? That her life meant so much more to everyone... so much more to me?

Disgusted, I realized that my discomfort had more to do with the fact that I was uncomfortable than anything to do with Winry. Even her odd mannerisms and calm discussion of murder, didn't shock me as badly as my own inner thoughts.

Was I STILL really THAT selfish? That, faced with her possible execution, I could still only relate to things as they related to me? How much I would miss her. How much I needed her.

With a blink, I realized, that I did need her. I've always needed her. And the more I needed her the more I pushed her away, because I had things I needed to do before... Before what?

To hell with that!

"Winry fuck this place. You shouldn't be here! It's just wrong."

"It's where they put murderers." She responded cooly.

"You're NOT a murderer... you just made a mistake." I pleaded with her to agree.

"I guess that's what you WOULD call it." She said, her obvious threat not lost on me. Still I could help myself.

I leaned forward and spoke softly out of the corner of my mouth so the camera, monitoring our visit, could not pick it up.

"You know we could get you out of here."

"ARGH!" Her loud, yell of frustration, as she stood, caught me by surprise and I clumsily slipped from the stool I was sitting on. She turned hatefully kicking the single chair in her cell. It bounced loudly off the bars of her cell.

A second of hope rose unbidden in my chest, as I watched her much more familiar mannerisms. I would much rather see her angry like this than resigned to dying. It was the first time I saw a spark of life in her the whole time we'd been talking.

"You STILL don't understand!" She cried, palms open as if begging me. She froze like that for a moment before dropping them, her countenance deflating as she spoke in a small voice.

"You never did, and I was stupid to think you ever will." Tears welled up in her eyes, but when she spoke her voice was even, under control. "I killed him. In cold blood. I knew what I was doing – I planned it... it was all I thought about for DAYS!" She yelled, before calming herself and continuing.

"And I went through with it. Now, in accordance with your alchemist's equivalent exchange I am going to die. And do you know what? I'm ok with that, Edward." It was the first time she'd said my name the entire time. As if realized this, she blushed and turned so she was facing the one small barred window high on the opposite wall.

The last rays of sunlight's filtered in behind her and lit her blonde tresses with an orange fiery glow. Perhaps it was the vision before me that made her voice seem so far away as she spoke next.

"I'm so tired. I'm tired of living for everyone else, and never for me. I'm tired of giving everything I've got and expecting good things, and only to find they're rotten. So this... this I did for me, and my parents, and now I will join them."

Her nonsensical words shocked me into silence. Was this how far gone she was? How could she reach such an awful conclusion? Such a bleak ending. How could she think that would satisfy anything?

"You don't understand." Works failed me again, "Do you know what your death would do to everyone??? Pinako, Al..." I swallowed, "... to me?"

"Always about you, isn't it, Edward?" Winry chuckled. The bitter sound grating me like nails on a chalkboard.

"You're just upset, because when I'm gone you'll have lost the only girl who will appreciate your mechanical limbs as much as your real ones." Winry spun around to face me again, her blazing blue eyes peirced me more than her next statement, "And maybe – just maybe you're beginning to realize that you'll never be able to get your real arm and leg back!" She yelled at me and in her tirade stormed so close to the bars that her nose stuck out slightly.

The never-spoken doubt that I would not be able to restore my body, didn't hurt me as much as the truth in her statement of my selfishness.

"That's not what I meant!" I cried, the injustice of her correct reasoning carving an unbearable pain through my chest. I reached out for her hand. "You have so much..."

She cut me off as she snatched her hand away from mine and retreated further into her cell. "I'm very tired, Ed." To her credit she sounded exhausted, "I'm sure visiting hours are almost up." She sat down on her small cot. "I'd show you out, but..." she trailed off with a flip of her wrist indicating the cell.

Her casual dismissal highlighted by the sadistic smile on her lips was the last thing I remember.

I felt so trampled emotionally, as if she'd forced me to see things I'd been blind to. The pain couldn't have been more if she'd actually ripped feelings right out of my heart.

I couldn't take it anymore. I was no longer sure what had driven me to come here in the first place. This was wrong. She was wrong. This couldn't be happening. And it was obvious that I wasn't getting anywhere by talking to her.

I needed to get away so I could think straight.

I wasn't running away. That's not how I looked at it, of course. But if I was going to think of a way out of this, I needed to do it away from her.

So I made one of the absolute biggest mistakes, in the long list of mistakes that made up my life, I turned and fled.

As fast as I could run, I hurried back down the hall to Death Row without even a good-bye or a glance back.

_tbc..._


	4. Realizations

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Chapter 4 – Realizations

* * *

Utterly overwhelmed, I ran full-force in order to distance myself from the bleak cell and it's infinitely more bleak resident. As I burst through the last death row checkpoint, I felt my head clear a little.

Winry wasn't going to die. I would not let her die...

She would not... could not...

This was the mantra repeating itself over and over in my head.

It didn't occur to me, until much later, how arrogant a person has to be to believe they can absolutely prevent another person's death.

I was focused. I was determined. I was every bit of my given alchemist's name (#1).

Even if I had to kidnap Winry against her will, I would. And I would slowly beat into her brain what an incredible woman she was.

I would make her see how much everyone cared about her. And things could go back to the way they were.

No - they'd be better, because I'd be more for her. I'd repay every kindness she'd ever bestowed on me with interest.

And – I'd be more open, about Al and I's search, and… everything. It was the least she deserved.

I would make her a priority, because… she was, I realized with a start.

She was a priority because… I cared about her.

No - more than that, I loved her…

I love her! The realization didn't shock me like I thought it would. It was just… right. It made sense. Suddenly everything clicked in my head.

That's what it was always about. Trying to keep her from the pain of the truth... trying to shield her from the worst of the daily despair and fear that accompanied us on our quest.

After I burst from the corrections building, I found my insanely fast beating heart was much easier to slow.

I hadn't realized that it was making a great effort to pound itself through my chest cavity, until I slowed to a jog and finally to a fast walk in the early dusk.

I stuck my hands deep in my pockets, trying to look casual and not as shaken as still I was.

I knew it was selfish to be so concerned with my own feelings given the situation, but being around Winry like that… I simply couldn't help but realize.

I was so off balance, I was thinking about things completely differently.

I couldn't stop the stupid grin that split my face, until the reality of her situation hit me once again. My face fell from the weight. And my mind wandered back to our encounter of only moments ago.

Seeing her quit at anything was just unnatural.

Witnessing her actually give up was more depressing that I could have imagined.

Where had the girl with the ever-sunny disposition gone?

I shook my head… how would I know? Winry was right – I didn't even know her.

I had no idea how much hurt she had bottled up over her parents death or Al and I's inconsistent visits in her life.

She was just too good at covering up her real feelings.

No - that was wrong it wasn't her fault. We were supposed to be her friends, Al and I.

Al...

Maybe if Al had come with me to her cell, I wouldn't have screwed things up so badly.

Remembering my brother made me realize how I wasn't quite ready to face him with the details of my disturbing visit with Winry.

I paused at a large landmark near the middle of the base, eyeing suspiciously the paths before me, as if each contained some greater challenge I didn't know about.

I was feeling ashamed. I knew I didn't handle myself so well back there… I wasn't comforting or… anything that would help Winry. Every time I opened my mouth, I only seemed to upset her more.

Without really knowing why, I found myself wandering away from the dorms in the direction the hospital wing.

After a short walk, I found myself in front of the door to the room I usually occupied when I was admitted for treatment after any of my more violent encounters.

Two guards flanked the door. This must be where Mustang was.

Flashing my state alchemist's watch granted me access.

It never ceased to amaze me the freedom that this particular timepiece bought. It almost made it worth its price of slavery. ...almost.

Entering the room, I faced another sobering vision to add to my seriously depressing day.

There, in the same bed I had lain countless times before, lie Roy Mustang.

His hair seemed darker, somehow, against the unnaturally pale alabaster of his skin. His countenance lacked the spark of life ever present in his calculating expression.

I never thought I'd miss his sarcastic sneer or arched eyebrows.

Not understanding why I'd even come, I sat beside his hospital bed.

"I would say you deserve this for what you've done... for what you did you her…" I couldn't help my exasperated sigh, "But I'd be lying. Nobody deserves this." I looked down at my gloved hands, contemplating what I needed to say.

"I know they say that death cancels all deals… but you're not dead yet, you asshole." My eyes fell on the heart monitor, steadily beeping – as if looking for reassurance of this fact. For a moment, I watched the green lines jumping up and down in a slow skip of a steady heartbeat.

I was honestly surprised to find the calming atmosphere of the hospital room (that always seemed stifling when I was under those white sheets) did, in fact, settle me down a bit from my crazy encounter with Winry.

I felt my mind clearing, if only a little.

Looking at Colonel Roy Mustang's peaceful face, I felt like I understood why I came.

"Ok, now that you're beating down death's door, let's level." I interlaced his fingers, real over automail, and leaned forward in the seat, "We've both put each other through hell… and neither of us deserves any favors." I hesitated a second, glancing around the empty room before continuing. I almost felt like he was really listening to me, and it creeped me out because he wasn't able to reply.

"But I'm not asking this for me… it's – her. She does so much for so many people… and I've never seen her like this. She doesn't deserve to have it end this way. And… you need to snap out of it so you can help me save her." I swallowed.

"She really thinks she killed you, and… it's made her… not herself." I finished lamely, unable to admit to anything harsher.

"Yea – before you jump outta bed and start screaming at me…" I repressed a smile as the familiar scene played out in my head, "I am asking for your help…" I chuckled.

"Try not to let it go to your head." I stood, having said what I needed to say, I headed toward the door. I felt a little lighter.

"Just wake the hell up, would you?" I called over my shoulder as I left the room. "You've still got too much to do to lay around here any longer."

I ignored the guards salute as I left and headed in the direction of the room I shared with Al.

On my way, a plan began forming.

Planning was, after all, what I was good at. I was especially good at coming up with plans that had little to no chance of working.

I should have known that nothing ever goes the way you want it to, just because you want it to.

I also would have thought that at this point in my life I would realize that wanting things to go back to the way they were is a childish and unrealistic desire.

The simple fact is, there is always a price to be paid when you want something, and it is usually higher than you realize.

_tbc... _

_

* * *

_

(#1) Here's an interesting tidbit of trivia, for any one who was unawares. D I read that "fullmetal" is actually used to describe someone who is "stubborn".

THANK YOU for sticking with me and reading this far. Please feel free to let me know what you think.


	5. Unwavering Support

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Chapter 5 – Unwavering Support

* * *

By the time I reached Al and I's room, I had decided that I owed it to Winry to do what I do best: 

throw myself 100 percent into the next course of action.

First, I'd go to the higher-ups and exhaust every legal maneuver I could.

I knew people that could help. I'd call in every favor. I'd spend every dollar I had. None of that mattered when compared to her.

A clean record would be much better for Winry than living as a fugitive.

I had time... we had time, albeit not much.

With that in mind, I opened the door to the room I shared with my brother. I crept in quietly, as if I expected Al to be sleeping. He caught me off-guard when he jumped to his feet and clamored over to me.

"Brother, how is Winry?" His obvious worry wiped clean my intent to 'soften' the events. I found myself telling him almost everything.

I never exactly mentioned her despondent attitude, and how completely different she acted. But Al seemed to understand just by the desperate edge I tried to keep from my voice. He always was good at reading between my lines.

"It must be so hard for her... all alone." He said as I finished.

I felt as if I'd been slapped.

"Aah." I conceded, looking at my feet to hide my embarrassment. Even Al had recognized the problem without Winry spelling it out for him.

If THAT doesn't make me the biggest idiot...

"Brother, what are we going to do?" Al voice jerked me out of my non-productive guilt-trip.

I grinned, a tiny spark of motivation ignited as ONE thing went the way it was supposed to.

Good Ole Al – always on board with my train of thought. Already thinking of WHAT we were going to do, not HOW we were going to deal with it.

"Well, first we have to research her case, and the laws. But the library's closed by now..." I trailed off as I watched my brother nod just a bit too enthusiastically.

"I thought you might say that..." He motioned over to the corner of the room he had leapt up from. I saw several books, files, and a notebook filled with my brother's tidy handwriting.

"You already pulled the files." I said, amazed. "What do you know, great minds do think alike!"

Al shrugged and spoke in a soft voice showing his seriousness. "I want to know what happened too, brother..." Then softer, "We can't let Winry die."

His sober response was the catalyst to the long stretch of dead silence that crashed over us. As superstitious as it sounded, it felt like as just saying Winry and die in the same sentence was a jinx.

Moments passed, until I forcibly shook myself. We needed to get out of this purple-blue haze of dispair. It was not productive.

Crouching over the open books, files and notes, I looked up at my brother.

"So... what do you know?"

And Al proceeded to tell me...

It was not a good story.

The prosecutor had done a marvelous job of painting a very dark picture. Using the death of Winry's parents to insinuate a twisting of the psyche at a young age: he portrayed a mad country girl, obsessed with revenge and overcome with grief. Her guilt-stricken face and silence did nothing but highlight the image of a weak, broken, desperate teenager.

Miraculously, the fact that Mustang was directly responsible for the deaths of her parents was never revealed. Thus, gaining Winry no sympathy to her true motivations.

It was vaguely mentioned that Mustang had served IN the Isaball war, but only to support their theory that she had just begun some larger killing spree of military officials who were directly involved in the war that took her parents lives.

After the Scar incident – who's masacure spread across half of Armestis, the prosecutor had created the best case to have people sit up and take action.

All in all, reviewing the court reports did not add much to my understanding of the actual events that occurred between Winry and Mustang. But it did give a minute by minute transcription of the depressing proceedings that followed it.

It was obvious from the start that the trail was pushed by the higher ups in the military in order to set a precedent of the death sentence in cases less serious than actual murder.

The trick was to prove it.

Al and I discussed things and researched things long into the night.

Hour after hour passed...

We researched laws and punishments.

We reviewed court procedures, paperwork deadlines, and grounds for mistrial.

We checked out the circumstances and sentences of several near-murder cases that preceded Winry's.

As the sun rose I finally allowed myself to smile. We had done it. We had built a solid case for delaying her execution for a more fair and through trail.

The simple and depressing plan of a jail-break was brought up only once during the entire night. It was our habit whenever possible, and especially when it is not recommended, never to speak of worst case scenarios.

We had to believe we could succeed at what we were throwing ourselves into. We couldn't do that if we were going to be obsessed with everything that could go wrong.

But still, I was no fool. To act as though it wasn't a possibility was not fair to Al.

We both called our break-out plan a 'last resort'. But for the second time that night Al met me half-way. He, as much or maybe even more than me, was perfectly prepared to undertake the responsibility of becoming a fugitive – for her.

The reassurance put me at ease just a bit. Al and I could accomplish anything.

"You should get some sleep Nee-san." Al told me, as we finished organizing our night's notes. His concern thickened his softly given advice.

I hesitated to answer.

I wanted to file our request for appeal... I wanted to see Winry... I wanted see a real lawyer... I wanted to do so many things, and none of them involved sleep.

Still I knew sleep was probably the best idea.

Al's heavy hand landed on my shoulder.

It was strange... Touch – something offered in comfort – only offered me despair when it came from Al; the cursed reminder that he was still not in his real body.

As if realizing my thoughts, Al removed his hand quickly.

"You should really try. I'll go and file the appeal and visitation request. Maybe talk to Hawkeye about how to speed it up..." He trailed off and I realized how much he wanted to see Winry.

How much he wanted to see her to offer her comfort.

Al fidgeted, obviously uncomfortable. He wanted to stand up to me, but didn't want a fight. I decided to give up for his peace of mind more than my own.

"Ok Al, I am tired. I'll try." I could hear Al's armor give the tell tale sign rattling sound of him relaxing. He nodded and turned to leave.

"If I can't though, I'll go see Winry." I added, wanting to be honest with Al.

Al paused as if to argue, but nodded instead. "Ok, brother. But please try to sleep first." He said knowingly, before leaving our room armed with the few papers that would signify the beginning of our legal battle.

I briefly wondered when the best time to get a lawyer would be. And how would we pay for it... certainly the military wasn't going to let us spend their money to sue them. I was sure it was in a contract somewhere... So I'd have to find a way to get alternate funds.

I sat down heavily on my bed. - and flung myself back, hands clasped behind my head.

There was so much to think about. But now that my brother was gone, I found that every train of thought I started ended up being about her.

Winry.

Alone.

It was awful... I felt like I needed to see her so badly. As if it hadn't only just occured to me to comfort her and not just press her for answers or pester her for a solution.

I was so selfish. I coudln't believe how selfish I was.

I had gone to see Winry, because I wanted to know what had happened... I had needed to know what happened.

For what? What did it gain me?

I made her more miserable, even I could tell that.

What if...

UGH! Was I doomed to be stuck living in the past forever? Obsessed with things I might have done that would have turned out in ways I'll never know?

Al wanted to help Winry with what WAS happening.

All I did was bother her about what HAD happened.

Anticipating the immediate downward spiral of my thoughts, I stood from my bed quickly. There was no sense trying to sleep, it was only going to end up a through Ed bashing.

I could only change what I do from now on. Can't change the past.

Can only move forward.

I was going to see Winry again.


	6. Waking Message

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Chapter 6 - Waking Message

* * *

"I don't know why I even came back here." I admitted to the Colonel's prone form. Once again, only 12 hours after our last visit I was back in the sterile hospital room of Roy Mustang. 

"Maybe because I couldn't see her today. They wouldn't even let me in through the first checkpoint." barely resisting the urge to kick something, I stomped my feet childishly on the ground.

The guards I met had been firm (despite one of my better tantrums) that due to the severity of her crime, there were no unauthorized visitors allowed to Ms. Rockbell's cell.

Arguing that I had come just the day before, got me no sympathy and a great deal of mistrust. Apparently it was a different shift that allowed me, against protocol, to enter. I was required to get a visitation waiver from the judge in charge of the case before I could be allowed to see her.

I knew this from my research the night before – but had hoped a flash of my watch would grant me the usual open doors.

Storming from the prison wing with an attitude and the intent to find Lt. Hawkeye again, I found myself, once again, in front of the Colonel's room, and was now carrying on my moping via a one-sided conversation.

"We've been building a defense for her, Al and I." I motioned briefly at the inches high stack of papers I'd been working on all night as if the colonel had asked.

"It's pretty good, if I do say so myself… mental anguish – temporary insanity – everything in the book." I slumped, "but it would be SO much easier if you'd just wake the hell up."

"I bet you think I'm pretty pathetic moaning and groaning at your bedside while you're dead to the world." I sat back for a few minutes staring at the ceiling, lost in my own thoughts.

"I sure feel pathetic..." I dropped my head into my hands, and felt the sleepless night creep into my weary form. Without realizing I dropped instantly to sleep.

Jerking awake, I looked up at the clock to discover that almost an hour had passed.

I shook my head to clear it and stretched my stiff neck, not sure what had woken me. I glanced over at the Colonel. His chest still rose and fell in the same rhythm and his heart monitor beeped steadily. Nothing seemed different. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

"I guess I should head to the magistrate." I said yawning, "To see if anything's been processed on the appeal for her case." I stood, popping a few vertebrae in my back in a leisurely stretch.

"Man the military courts are strict - but at least they have quick processing time compared to regular courts."

Turning around to leave the room, I almost missed the hoarse whisper...

"… is she… alright..."

The breathy request was so soft that at first I remained with my back to the bed, trying to decide if I was crazy enough to turn around. Was I was really going to allow the hope to bubble forth and bring me to action?

Before I had decided, the voice spoke again.

"…Full..me-tal?" My eyes widened – the frozen shock on my face, quickly wiped out by joy. I spun quickly to face the Roy Mustang's bedside and was encouraged to see his eyes squint and focus on my face as I approached.

"Bought time you woke up, you lazy bastard." I said; the grin and obvious happiness in my words negating any negative connotation.

He didn't respond to the jive, and I became concerned. I reached up for the call button.

"I should bring the doctors so..."

"No!" the cry was desperate and his hand shot up a few inches from the bed before falling again, unable to raise his arm.

My hand hovered over the button, shocked to inaction.

Though obviously dazed and weak, the man looked very concerned about something. The tiniest seed of fear crept was planted as he spoke his next words with deliberate determination.

"Tell me... How-wa...wi... she?"

His eyes, sparked with his usual strength but there was something behind that, a panicked animal look of desperation. Thinking he could only be so concerned for one person, I tried to assure him.

"Eh, she's been notably stressed… but she's kept it together. You know Hawkeye. Man she is gonna flip when she hears you're awake. No body thought you'd come out of it…" I paused before adding, "even her."

"No!" Mustang croaked before he began coughing weakly. Obviously, his throat was being uncooperative to his speech.

I reached for a pitcher of water by the bed and poured a glass. I felt strange helping the colonel to sit up to take a sip.

After the great flame alchemist sagged, tiredly back into his bed, wore out by the simple act of trying to sit up and talk, he managed to shake his head as his eyes bored into mine.

"Rock…bell." He said clearly, but faltered after.

I was surprised at the older man's obvious concern for his would-be murderer. A feeling of unease crept into my stomach as his tired yet unwavering eyes continued to bore into mine.

"Winry?" the smile on my face quickly faded, "Well, to be honest she's little strange… I suppose being locked up in a cell for murder will do that to you." I tried for humor, but tapered off quickly, not understanding the pain that flashed across Mustang's face…

I rushed on, "But now that you're awake I'm sure she'll feel better when she realized she didn't succeed in killing you. PLUS this will be so much better for her defense..." I trailed off feeling suddenly guilty I hadn't called a nurse or something... after what if he died or something right in front of me and all I could do was worry about Winry...

As the colonels eyes because clouded and drooped closed for a second… I almost hit the nurse call button. But as he jerked and visibly forced himself to open his eyes again I was swayed by the way they sought mine and held them.

This was more important. He felt it was more important then him... that's what he was telling me. Why he stopped my from hitting the button a few moments ago. It was about Winry, and he felt I had to know – right now.

"Did she… say that's what happened?" Roy's question was no more than a whisper, and each syllable was painfully drug between shallow breaths. But it was more than enough for me to piece together that something was wrong…

I scratched the back of my head, trying to remember… "Well, maybe not in so many words…She didn't testify in court at all…" I glanced at my feet as if they they held the answer, "well, I guess I don't really know." My eyes returned to the colonels, my heart sinking…

"What happened?" I asked desperately. Suddenly I had a feeling I was missing something huge.

The colonel opened his mouth to speak, but began coughing again – this fit much worse than the last. Each hack seemed to seize his body, and get worse and worse…

Finally after it was apparent that the Colonel was having trouble breathing, I pressed the button to summon a doctor.

I wasn't just going to let the bastard die.

Hearing the alarm sound at the nurses station I grabbed the Colonel's shoulders, barely resisting the urge to shake him. "You don't get to quit on me now… tell me what happened, damnit!!"

As the nurses swarmed the room, obviously confused by their patient's conscious state, they threw me off of Roy and began checking all the machines and making the Colonel's position more comfortable.

I wrung my hands uselessly, as the nurses injected some medicine directly into Mustang's IV Line.

A younger nurse, misreading my worried expression tried to explain.

"His body has been through an amazing trauma. The fact that he's awake is a miracle. But he still needs more rest to recover. We're giving him something to relax so he doesn't try to force himself."

I nodded distractedly at her, focused on the Colonel as his weak hacking subsided, and his eyelids began falling.

At the last minute I saw Roy's eyes widen and he reached out.

"Ed…ward…" I blinked.

This is the first time in my memory that I have heard my given name from the Colonel's lips, since I became an alchemist.

Without thinking, I offered my flesh hand and took the Colonel's own. The nurses respectfully backed away, only one staying in the room making notes on his medical chart.

Roy licked his lips several times and took several breaths before managing…

"not.. trying to kill me… tried to… end… her…" The last word came out intelligible as Mustang's eyes sunk closed, his face smoothing out as his hand fell slack in my own.

I looked up panicked, but the nurse nodded reassuringly. "He's sleeping now." She checked her watch - made a few final notes on the chart and breezed through the door without so much as a look back.

I stood frozen.

I thought Roy had tried to say 'life'. 'Tried to end her own life?'… she was trying to kill herself?!?

For the second time in 24 hours, everything clicked violently in my head. Everything became so disgustingly clear to me.

Winry giving up.

Talking like she was already dead.

A fear much bigger than any I'd ever felt crashed upon me like a wave.

Setting the man's hand on his bed, I tore out of the hospital room and rushed to the prison wing.

She can't seriously think ending it is the best way...

Winry's entire attitude suddenly made sense to me and how I wished it still didn't.

She can't be considering suicide...

Not knowing was infinitely better than wondering if I was already too late!

She can't go through with it...

My heart pounded in my chest much harder than could be explained by the breakneck speed I was running.

She can't really mean it...

I burst out of the hospital wing – plowing through two secretaries. The papers fluttering to the ground barely registered.

She can't leave me alone...

I threw open the door to the prison wing and ran like I never had before.

She can't... she can't... she can't... echoed in my mind. The tempo beating faster than even my racing footsteps.


	7. Fated Fall

Maintenance

By KatsyKat aka Suzi

Chapter 7 – Fated Fall

* * *

The hospital room was quiet. The volume on the heart monitor had been turned off, and although it was still registering the steady rhythm, it was no longer chiming the miraculous beating of the Colonel's heart. 

Roy's nose twitched slightly in his drug-induced slumber. As if payment for his renewed awareness, his unconscious felt the need to torture him again and again with the happenings just before he almost lost his life...

It all started with a personal phone call the day before he met with Winry Rockbell...

Picking up the receiver, Roy was pleasantly surprised to find Gracia on the other line.

Before he could express his happiness over her contact, she opened with a bombshell.

"Roy, do you remember Maes talking about the Elric's friend, Winry Rockbell?"

Roy's heart slammed into his chest at the name... unbidden flashes of two smiling doctors, two lifeless corpses, and a bloody picture of a smiling young girl jumped to his mind as he brought the hand not holding the phone up to his temples.

"Yeah." He said breathlessly.

"Are you alright?" Gracia asked suddenly.

Roy cursed himself, was he THAT apparent, even over the phone?

"I'm fine. It's been a long day." He lied, forcing his heartbeat to return to normal.

"I'm sorry. I know you're very busy. And, normally I wouldn't bother you over such a little thing, but she's been here the past few days." Ah, it was the same blonde girl Roy saw at the window when he stopped over the house, he realized as Gracia continued. "It seems she wasn't aware of Maes's death until recently, and she's been quite upset."

"Is she causing trouble for you?" Roy asked, concerned.

"Oh no! Nothing like that... although honestly Riza should have prepared her before she showed up – not that I'm criticizing, mind you." Gracia added hurriedly.

Roy frowned, he was the one that had asked Hawkeye not to say anything to the Elrics, she had probably correctly deduced that telling the girl would be the same thing.

"I apologize." Roy said. After all, keeping Hughes death a secret from Fullmetal and his entourage was his direct order.

He understood that Winry, much like the Elric brothers, had gotten the father treatment from Maes. Fathering unfortunate souls was something that – while magnified once his own daughter was born – Maes had been doing for many years. Before Roy could go further down that line of thought Gracia interrupted him.

"Now-now-now, none of that. That's not at all why I called!" Gracia hurried on. "I just hate seeing her like this." Roy heard the pause as if the woman were deciding how much to divulge. "I'm not sure if you remember, but Winry stayed with us before, and although she was troubled about something at the time – she still had such a sunny disposition. During Elycia's party Maes had a talk with her that seemed to perk her up – you know how Maes was... and... well I'm just no good at those sorts of things. She was very surprised to learn of you and he's friendship. It shocked her somehow, and I thought perhaps you had met her before..." Gracia trailed off. She wasn't pushing for an answer but allowing him the opportunity to make known any contact if he desired.

"We... we've met briefly." He said softly.

"Ah, yes, good. I had wondered if you had a little time, if maybe you could... Perhaps if she spent a little time with you... it might help."

Roy jerked as he realized what she was suggesting. Gracia never said it was something Hughes would have done. She didn't have to. Roy knew it as well as she did.

And Roy would love to honor his friends memory... but insofar as actually seeking the child out.

Roy, personally, wanted nothing more than to never again lay eyes on the girl... so much like her mother.

Winry Rockbell reminded him, every second he gazed upon her – of the wide-eyed shock in her mothers eyes as she witnessed the military betray her and her husband.

Not that it was the girls fault that Roy had committed such a horrendous act... nor was it her doing that he was such a coward for not being able to face her with the truth of his sins like he planned that rainy night in Risembool.

Unbidden, his mind wandered back to that night. He wasn't a man that believed in fate – but if he were: that night would have affirmed his belief, when he first laid eyes on the Elric brothers.

He wanted to tell Winry then; her and her grandmother who were the remaining family of the doctors slain by his own hand, what had happened. He began his venture to tell them what the military had done and what he planned to do about it... to offer them the truth, if nothing else. And to press upon them how much it changed him.

At the time, idealistic man that he was, he wanted them to bear witness to his solemn vow that he would never again follow such horrendous orders. That he would become the head of the military that he now hated to prevent anything like that from happening.

But once he got to Risembool... he found that the logical side of his brain had imagined all the horrible things the Rockbell's could do once he told them – the very least of which was contact his superiors to inform them of his actions.

That would certainly lead to a dishonorable discharge if not serious jail time. Leaking out classified military information to civilians was not a light offense. It would prevent him from becoming Fuhrer, which he had vowed to do on the Rockbell's wasted lives.

That vow was the only thing that was keeping him going... keeping him half sane. He was terrified of losing that flicker of hope that one day things could be better. That he, because of what he was forced to do, could make things better.

And the Elric's attempt at human transmutation provided a much better distraction.

So like the coward he was back then, he turned so again as his attention returned to the conversation at hand.

"Honestly, Gracia, I would like to help. But I'm leaving on an extended mission tomorrow afternoon. I'm not sure when I'll be back in Central. Perhaps... when I get back I can seek her out and we can talk then."

He knew Gracia was not fooled, but she gracefully accepted his excuse.

"Of course, Roy, I understand that you're busy. I only thought..." she hesitated, "Thank you so much for taking the time to hear me out." She said in a small voice.

Assuring her it was no trouble was harder than he thought it should be. The false-sounding words wanted to stick in his throat. Hanging up the phone, after the required pleasantries were exchanged, Roy sent a half-crazed guilt-ridden thought to his deceased friend.

'If you want me to talk to her, send her to me Maes. I don't have the courage to take that step... and I can't make any promises that I'll be able to own up to anything, but if she tracks me down I promise I'll do what I can to help her overcome her grief.'

He could understand the blow Maes death was taking on the young girl.

She'd lost both her parents at a young age, and while she lived with her grandmother – she had no father figure in her life. Roy understood she spent some time with Hughes before his death.

Maes had an uncanny way of fathering everyone. He had a keen eye for understanding what people needed, and enjoyed filling in the blanks. His keen insight and desire to help people was what led him to the top of the investigative department.

Roy couldn't count the number of wonderfully insightful father-like speeches he'd received from his late friends; but he did know that each and every one of them was exactly the thing he needed. If Maes could make Roy feel a childlike appreciation of Maes ability to 'make things better' it wasn't a far stretch to understand how easy it would be for a young fatherless girl to latch onto and idolize the model father.

And so it was when Roy was skipping out early that day after being unable to get Gracia's words out of his head that he overheard the receptionist apologizing to "Miss Rockbell" that Colonel Mustang would be indisposed for the next several weeks and her request for a meeting would have to be delayed. Mustang decided that a man could only ignore so many coincidences before believing, even just a little, in fate.

Roy put a hand out for the phone. The receptionist begrudgingly offered the handset to him.

"This is Colonel Roy Mustang, how can I help you?" he said in his most suave voice.

"Ano... is this really Mr. Mustang, the Flame Alchemist?" A timid voice asked.

"Of course," he replied smoothly, ignoring her lack of title - civilians and their disregard for the military! "And would this be Miss Winry Rockbell, the mechanic for the Fullmetal Alchemist?"

The girl cleared her throat. "Yes, but Edward doesn't have anything to do with..."

"Are you free tomorrow at 8?"

There was a pause.

"In the morning?" She questioned, suddenly sounding unsure.

"Of course." He replied smoothly.

"Yes I am." She said more strongly, determined.

"Then if you would like to come to my office, we can sit down and talk then." He said, a smile playing on his lips at her resolute tone.

"Thank you." She said after a short pause.

"Not a problem. I shall look forward to seeing you then." He replied smoothly, handing the receiver back to the miffed receptionist.

Disconnecting the line she addressed him. "You have a debriefing tomorrow at 8."

"Push it back." He said with a wave of his hand as he strolled out of the office.

The woman sighed, used to, but not accepting of, the Colonel's lax appointment scheduling.

The next morning, found Roy Mustang more agitated than usual. He had shooed all his subordinates from the office with a gruff tone and an effective glare. At his insistence, even Hawkeye left with little more than a knowing look which said 'you're explaining yourself later'.

He was quite agitated about upcoming meeting. So when Winry Rockbell was escorted into his office by a cadet, watching her busy hands snatch at the edges of the purse slung across her shoulder, adjust her dress, and alternately clutch at each other, he easily attributed her actions to her nerves and nothing more.

Never did the possibility of her knowing the truth about her parents death, cross Mustang's mind. After all who could have told her that?

Roy was trying to call on whatever part of Maes spirit he could tap into to give this girl the advise she needed to move forward with her grief over his death.

Because Roy was no stranger to grief he could tell that her face was nothing if not stricken with it. You'd think her parents, dog, best friend, only sibling, and grandmother had all died that very morning. The bags under her tired eyes, and her pale skin were only two of the many tell-tale signs of sleeplessness.

Her eyes held that wild almost desperate look like a frightened bird. To Roy it seemed that perhaps she was still in the surreal stages of accepting Maes' death. It never crossed his mind that she was in the latter stages of giving up completely.

Mustang ran through the many speeches of Maes... about the 'way things are,' how you 'can't change some things' and how Maes would want her to 'carry on' with her life... so he was caught completely off guard when the girl – now seated across his desk said in a quiet but even voice.

"Are you the same flame alchemist that killed my parents in the war?" Her blue eyes gazed into his own, the skittishness of just seconds before gone completely. The orbs neither condemned nor truly questioned, simply boring into Mustangs as if daring him to lie.

Never in a hundred years had he expected that.

"Aaa." Mustang finally replied, unable to get much else past his closed throat. The fact that his immediate response wasn't to deny the accusation would have pleased him if he'd been able to see anything objectively. As it was, he was having a hard time having any rational thought beyond the suffocating guilt that crashed upon him.

She knew... she wasn't supposed to – but she did, and now what could he say? Long practiced apologies, sounding hollow, even in his own minds voice, roared in his head like the sound of thousands of people screaming. And he knew because he had heard the sound of thousands of people screaming.

Oblivious to his inner turmoil, she continued, her eyes still boring into his. "You know, I always knew I hated you."

Roy jerked, not surprised that she hated him, but surprised at the venom in her voice.

"When you showed up that night... and you dangled the military's recourses in front of an injured boy, regardless of his condition... I knew there was something... _vile_ about the kind of person you would have to be." Her lip curled in distaste.

Mustang opened his mouth and then closed it. Vile... that was a new one.

Squirming under the woman's scorching gaze... he cursed his helplessness. He had been planning an entirely different conversation and now that his worst nightmare had come true, he found himself woefully unprepared.

What was she looking for here... an apology... for what? She went from her parents' deaths to his enlisting the Elrics? What was her line of thinking? Deciding that the Elrics were much safer territory for the moment he started there.

Roy opened his mouth...

"Ms. Rockbell, the boy that I saw that night was... broken... hopeless. I gave him hope..."

...and he inserted his foot.

"FALSE hope! You knew better!" She yelled. "You were an adult and he was just a child!"

Roy bit back the retort that she was just a child also, and still was, but he knew better than to think that would help his current situation.

"I didn't know any more than what I told them. If they really wanted to get their bodies back contacts with the military would increase their chances by allowing them better access..."

"I'm not asking you to justify it to me." She said coldly. "I know why you did it far better than they ever will."

"Oh really?" He couldn't help but challenge, his elbows settled on the desk while fingers pressing together in a thoughtful pose.

"Your power-hungry attempts to become Fuhrer are not as secret as you think." She said cryptically. "Surely one or two brilliant child alchemists couldn't have hurt your record."

Mustang bit his lip and covered it with his thumbs. While not the entire truth – it was close enough to sting.

"I really don't feel I have to justify..."

"Of course you don't!" Winry cried, cutting him off. "That's why we're having this conversation! You think you can just do whatever you want without consequence."

"Of course I don't!" He cried out, echoing her words without realizing it. His hands flew apart and slammed into the desk to accent his points. "EVERYthing we do has a PRICE.. every ACTION has an equal..."

"You alchemists and your bloody equivalent exchange, is it?!?" Her blue eyes blazed with barely contained hatred as her sarcastic words cut off Mustang's rant. "Don't you DARE quote that meaningless crap to me!"

Roy sat silently, floored by her sudden flare of emotions as Winry continued.

"I will NEVER understand that – the exchange is never equal! It's just a pretty lie to help you sleep at night... help you think that you'll always get what you put into something... A way to blame your failure on some imagined lack – instead of facing the fact that it was impossible to begin with!"

The silence stretched in the room as each occupant, assured of their correctness, stared down the other. Roy was the first to speak.

"Ms Rockbell," He tried in a soft non-threatening tone, "Equivalent exchange is a proven theory in alchemy."

"No it isn't!" She cried, "Because if it were there would be something that was equivalent to bringing someone back from the dead, wouldn't there?!?" She continued ignoring Roy's shocked expression, "But there isn't! When you take someone from somebody – they're gone. They're gone forever. There's no giving them back, no matter what you would give... They're just gone." Winry bowed her head, her hands covering her face so only her shaking shoulders betrayed her silent sobs. Roy's heart broke for the girl, and he raked his mind for something to soothe her.

"It... it's the soul. There's nothing you can do in exchange for a soul. One isn't equal to another – if it was, I'd trade mine for your parents." Roy hesitated, looking up into the tearfilled blue eyes that regarded him once again.

He almost faltered but continued on, "There's nothing you can offer to equal a life even... even one that you've taken. If there was, I'd have gladly paid it..." He sighed, "I almost did." He said in a near-whisper.

"Almost did what?" Winry asked, her voice still hard, despite the tears that shone in her now-curious eyes.

The colonel struggled... only he and Marco knew what happened that day. Was he really going to tell this girl? Spill to her his deepest darkest secret?

Before he opened his mouth, he knew the answer was yes. It was the very least he owed her,

"I almost killed myself." He said – his voice barely a whisper.

Winry's eyes narrowed in disappointment as Roy hurried on. It was obvious that this wasn't what she was looking for.

"I was stopped... both times I tried. The first time – when I was completely irrational shortly after I did it... I was made to understand that my death wouldn't accomplish anything."

"And the second time it would have?" Winry asked sarcastically.

"No... well I thought so. The second time... when I was trying to use alchemy... to resurrect them. I was so sure I could succeed. But Maes..."

Winry's eyebrow raised at that. "Maes stopped you?" she said in a hard voice.

Roy nodded. "He showed me that by killing myself then I was of no use to the people I'd killed, but if I moved forward keeping them in my heart I could accomplish great things I would otherwise not have tried."

"Tsk." Winry exhaled a sharp breath. "What a load of shit." She said coldly.

Roy tried not to be hurt that this girl was so distrusting of his soul baring.

"You just weren't in enough pain – to overcome your fear of the unknown." She said matter-of-factly. "You have no idea if it would have worked, do you?"

Wait... "What?" Roy asked sharply.

Winry looked at him with a bored expression as if talking to a child. The tears from earlier were gone, almost as if they'd never graced her face.

"You know, you really are something. You have so many different ways to make everything sound... so... noble. Let me guess... the 1st time you stood there with you gun in your mouth...or under your chin perhaps... over the spot where you killed my parents – and someone, maybe someone you had a meeting with at that exact time that you conveniently decided to off yourself, just happened to walk in just in time to talk some sense into you."

Roy opened his mouth and then closed it quickly.

"How could you... You talk like you've..."

"Considered it? Of course I have, are you daft? Do you understand ANYTHING I've been saying?!? I've lost everything I've ever cared about... every person, every thing... gone. And most of it was a direct result of your actions." Her chin trembled slightly although she did not cry again, "Even Maes... who was supposed to be your friend..."

"Maes WAS my friend. He chose not to let me get involved..."

"You know, you can try all you want, but there's no explanation that can justify it. The facts won't change. They died and you killed them. You knew that or you wouldn't have been so distraught as to 'try' to kill yourself." Winry sighed. "How disappointing." She said crossing her arms and looking pointedly away from the man seated before her.

"What?" Mustang asked, still uncomfortable.

"I guess... after all this, I am still an optimist after all."

"What do you mean?" Mustang asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"I don't really know... I just expected... more I guess."

"More than..."

"Well... more than the broken man you are." Roy stiffened at her accusation. "I mean think about the last few minutes. 'yes I killed your parents and I 'tried' to kill myself...' as if that makes up for it."

"Is there something more you wanted from me than?" Roy's normally composed voice held a note of desperation.

"I want you to suffer like I do every day! I WANT you to feel the pain I feel when I think about my parents, or the good man Maes was, or the people my best friends are becoming all because of YOU!" Winry yelled.

"Please tell me if there is anything I can do for you..."

Winry's expression darkened.

"Ah – that's what it really is isn't it?!? Here I come to you – looking for something to make some sense out of all this: to give some meaning to all the death you've caused. Perhaps to feel a little better by learning what actually happened, and here you are asking ME how to make yourself feel better."

Mustang shook his head. "That's not it at all... I just... I mean, I don't think anything I can tell you would help at all. It was a stupid... a horrific order... and I should never have followed it. But I did – I was weak – I admit to it – and I'm sorry... more sorry then you could ever know..."

"Oh – you're SORRY! Well, that does it then. It must be all ok now."

"Of course it's not!" Mustang countered her interruption with another, "But not like I could have prevented their deaths by refusing to kill them... in fact I would most certainly signed my own execution and they would have simply been killed by someone else." He took a deep breath before continuing in a calmer voice. "I'm sorry they died, but there's nothing I could do. That's why I am working as hard as I can to be in a position where I CAN do something next time.

"So you use their deaths as a measuring stick for how little power you have and go out searching for more, like that will somehow make up for it!?!"

"NO!" Mustang yelled, before forcing himself to calm down.

"I'm not interested in your version of equivalent exchange." Winry said, suddenly calm, as if she hadn't just been yelling. "I was much more interested in showing you mine."

Roy's heart dropped into his stomach. Her expression, her tone, her demeanor, nothing sounded good.

"It's taken me a long time to figure out how to get over all this... pain and agony." Winry's gaze settled on the window over Roy's shoulder and he felt like her mind was much farther away then across his desk. "I was convinced that the solution was the end of your life. That I could gain a measure of satisfaction by killing the man who killed so many people I cared about."

Something in Roy's gut twisted. This girl shouldn't be saying such things, even if he understood where she was coming from. But before he could interrupt her morbid speech, Winry continued.

"But... seeing you here, as you are now, confirms it. Killing someone like you won't bring anybody anything, even if it WOULD make the world a better place. Loss and misery... I seem to attract them. I am surrounded by people who need help, but I can never be all the things that need. I can never fill the void that could save them. And one by one... I lose them. So I finally figured out what I can take to stop it..." she looked up at Roy, a crazed unreadable expression on her face as she uttered her last syllable, "...me."

Roy's brow creased, she couldn't possibly be thinking... her next words erased any doubt.

"I can take my own life. Then my pain will not be the unbearable agony I live with everyday. And since no one will depend on me, no one will be let down."

"You can't possibly think the world would benefit from your death!" He tried to reason with her.

"I know I would!" She countered.

"You can't know what will happen when you die!" He tried again – how was it that Maes was so good at calming people and all Roy managed to do was rile them up?

"Can't be any worse than it is being alive." She threw back.

"What about Ed & Al?"

"What about them?"

Reason – try to reason with her.

"Don't you realize how upset they'll be by your death?!?"

"Oh – I only wish!" She threw back, a sarcastic sneer dominating her face. "Honestly, Al will probably be pretty upset, but Ed will take care of him. Besides they've gotten over so much more than me... I can't imagine a small thing like an old friend dying would keep them down for too long."

"What will Ed do when someone inferior to you has to make his automail?" Roy knew he was grabbing at straws, but he honestly couldn't let the girl continue with her warped thinking.

"Nice try." She smiled, "But you won't get anywhere by appealing to my vanity. I'm not quite delusional enough to think there isn't someone better than I to equip the great Fullmetal Alchemist with his precious detested automail. I am, after all, just a small town girl with an obsessive grandmother."

"Speaking of, is she aware of your depression and thoughts of suicide?"

"You won't get anywhere by dragging my grandmother into this or attempting to depersonalize or trivialize what I'm about to do, Mr. Mustang." Winry countered, adding a sarcastic stress on the 'Mr.' – proving to Roy that she knew his rank and didn't care to use it.

Roy didn't care about that – he was trying to figure out what Winry felt like she was accomplishing by speaking with him. Was this her desperate cry for help? A plea for him to stop her? Or, he swallowed thickly, a dare for him to try?

"Ms. Rockbell... Winry, I just want you see that your death won't accomplish anything. It's only by living that we can accomplish our goals."

"My death will accomplish everything it's supposed to!" She cried. The twinkle in her eyes became more and more pronounced with each word, "Don't you see? That's why I came to you... It's not the prefect ending, but I'm taking from you your selfish desire for retribution – for forgiveness. I'll never forgive you – I'll die before I do – no one can stop me, especially not you. I've thought long and hard – It's the only thing that equals my parents' deaths – knowing you should have done something to prevent mine, but you were unable to."

"Are you kidding me? Like I'm going to let you walk out of here after all this?!?"

Winry smiled, and Roy felt the first twinge of real fear at the cold certainty in her expression "You speak like I plan on leaving here at all."

Terror froze Roy to the spot.

In war you learned to read the subtlest gestures of your enemy. From the smallest clues you had to deduce the honesty and intentions of the person before you. And with the trained eye of a soldier – he knew she was not bluffing. She believed she could kill herself right here in front of him.

Damnit. Had he really fallen into such a trap as to be forced to watch her kill herself?

Bile rose in the back of his throat before he forcibly swallowed.

Ok – think, Roy think. Don't Panic.

What are the facts? Is she really in a mental state to do something like that? Unwilling to waste time weighing the odds, Roy quickly took in her posture and crazed look. He put an affirmative checkmark after that question. Yes – she is in a state to try.

Ok – relate, Roy. You've been here – to this dark place... thinking death was a better option than living.

How did you pull out of it?

How? No forget that – there's no time.

How does she think she could kill herself before you?

His eyes ran up and down the girl seated before him.

Drugs?

No – she'd have to have taken them previous to being in the same room as me and she couldn't guarantee she'd be conscious and in control long enough to finish this conversation. Plus once she fell unconscious, she knows I would bring her to hospital only a building away. They should be able to prevent death from almost any type of overdose.

His eyes strayed to her purse... her bulky purse.

Shit... not a knife – too much that could go wrong – probably a gun.

He wasn't fast enough to stop a bullet. He didn't have his gloves on – they were in his coat across the room. He couldn't even burn the strap from her shoulder or anything. Shit.

Winry had followed his gaze and smiled pulling her purse up into her lap.

"I know it's not true irony, but no matter how justified my reasoning – I probably couldn't kill anyone... even you. So your witnessing this will have to be good enough..." Winry said as she reached down and quickly unclasped her purse.

Steadily, she drew out a heavy awkwardly-weighted pistol. Roy recognized it as Maes' great-grandfather's gun. Maes had shown Roy it and several stacks of photos of the man on a number of occasions.

"I'll see you in hell." She said sarcastically as Roy struggled to move through the worst kind of slow motion. The kind nightmares were made of when you couldn't do a damn thing to change what was happening but you still had to try.

Roy leapt from his chair, throwing the wooden thing into the air. His movements seemed sluggish as if he were moving through water, whereas Winry seemed to have no trouble.

He watched in horror as she held the gun steadily in both hands and used both thumbs to pull back the hammer.

Roy rounded the desk, his hip smacking the corner of the desk with a painful jolt. Not breaking his stride, he watched Winry pull the gun up to her temple. He reached out grabbing for her arm and stumbled forward, falling towards the carpet.

The slip of his feet is what saved her.

Just as he saw her finger pressing the trigger, without any hesitation, he noticed, his reaching fingers – propelled by the speed of his fall, managed to snag her arm.

He had a chance to register the look of pure horror that crossed Winry's face as he drug her arm downwards and he, himself, realized much to late that the only thing in the path of the bullet was now himself...

A smile crossed his face at the irony as the gunshot echoed and the terrified expression of Winry's face was the last thing he saw as a silent red and black world strangly devoid of pain or feeling of any kind dropped onto Roy.

_tbc..._

* * *

Yes, I realized this leaves just as much of a cliffhanger as the last chapter. Plus it's no longer Ed's POV - whoopsie! My condolences – I've got one, maybe two more chapters planned, so it's not too much longer now. In retrospect when I go back and edit this story (thanks again to SJ Smith for notes on a few spots that need some doctoring) I may sprinkle pieces of this chapter – especially the conversation with Gracia – in the earlier chapters. I just realized that I'm almost at the end, and I wanted this scene to be... well... seen. 

I realize that Winry is about as OOC as she can get here - I promise I will have some more of her reasoning coming up. I started this story (monster though it's become) after watching the episode where Winry finds out Mustang killed her parents and, based solely on the anime, decided that she'd have to try to do something about the unfairness of it. Then, I made the mistake of reading the manga, which shows Winry as an infinitely more compassionate person, and I'm having a hard time hanging onto the slightly-bitter person I imagined she could be (when seeing the treatment she gets in the anime) because I really fell in love with her manga character.

Thank you VERY MUCH to everyone who has read this far – and especially those who have taken the time to comment!


	8. Winry's Reasoning

Maintenance

By KatsyKat aka Suzi

Chapter 8 – Winry's Reasoning _ (takes place directly after Ed leaves Winry's Cell)_

* * *

Blue listless eyes bored into the ceiling. The rush of tears that had come to Winry after Ed had fled from her cell, had been swiftly blinked back even before the first managed to fall. She wouldn't cry at his careless abandonment; she should have expected it after all. No need to cry for something so predictable. 

Winry had decided some time ago that she'd spent too many tears on others in her lifetime. She promised herself she wouldn't waste any more effort on useless tears, athough she'd long before stopped crying for herself. These days it was other people she couldn't keep her empathy in check for.

"Crying never got anybody anything but useless and dehydrated." So her grandmother had been fond of saying. Although the night Al had carried Ed to their doorstep was the first time those words were directed at her so harshly.

Like any traumatizing experience, Winry remembered that night with the razor sharpness etched into her brain by her first taste of real terror.

Shortly after they instructed Al - _poor Al so alien and awkward_ - to lie Ed on the table, Pinako had ordered Winry to get a basin of boiled water so they could clean the open wounds on the stubs that remained of Ed's arm and leg.

Too stunned by the speed at which her grandmother had gotten Ed into the operating room – staunched the bleeding – and ordered Winry around gathering tools and supplies, Winry had yet to truly process what was happening to her childhood friend.

But, standing at the stove, waiting for the water to boil – finally alone, Winry's mind began to catch up and her heart swiftly followed. Beginning with a single tear, Winry quickly dissolved into a helpless pile of watery sobs.

20 minutes later Pinako had stormed in... the water Winry was supposed to be fetching had been at a boil for some time.

"Those tears are not very befitting of the Rockbell name..." The harsh words stilled the blonde girls crying. Watery blue eyes looked up to regard her grandmother in disbelief, as young Winry wiped the snot that ran from her nose.

"You've gone and let the water boil for ages, lost in your own misery. Did you forget about the pain that Ed is in? The REAL pain, not the sympathetic discomfort you're wallowing in!" Pinako waved her hand at the pot, "Your parents would be so disappointed. Doctors have no time for tears. Their patients very lives depend on them to be clear-eyed, sharp, focused – and not lost in their own grief. No matter who the patient is." The crossed arms and stern face radiated Pinako's displeasure.

It was the harshest tone and words Winry had ever heard from her grandmother's mouth – let alone aimed at her. Winry startled – wide eyed as a fresh batch of tears gathered in the corners of her eyes... but after glancing back up at Pinako – Winry swallowed them, terrified to upset her grandmother in the state she was.

Winry almost caved under the guilt that crashed upon her when the meaning behind her grandmother's words finally sank in. Who was she, indeed, to be crying for Ed when she was standing here whole, unharmed, and able to help?

"I'm sorry I took so long getting the water." Winry rushed, swallowing her hiccups and quickly bending down and grabbing the handles of the heavy pot. Winry then hurried out of the room, careful to not slosh the awkward pot too much and not looking her grandmother in the face as she passed her.

Thus she didn't see the sorrowful look on Pinako's face – and couldn't understand that Pinako hated being so harsh with the child, but needed her help to save her friend. Although regretting ending her childhood early, Pinako thought it would be better for her in the long run to learn real strength now.

The lesson would have been better received if Winry hadn't walked in on her grandmother just days later tenderly wiping Ed's tears. Pinako told the boy that it was, "ok to cry." And soothed his fears and half awake murmurings...

Winry knew, backing away from the half closed doorway, she shouldn't be jealous. Logically speaking, she was a girl with both arms and legs and Ed was severally injured, but still... couldn't her grandmother have given one single hug and told Winry that it was ok to cry sometimes and that everything would be alright? Just once?

Was it really too much to ask to be comforted once in a while?

Even Ed, the few times Winry had been unable to stop the tears from running, treated her like her tears were those of a child throwing a fit that needed to be let run it course. As if her sorrow was imposing on him. He usually seemed mad at her for breaking down in front of him.

Just because she WAS strong, did everybody ALWAYS have to treat her like she was? Could no one take a single moment to offer some comfort or aid?

A soft sigh emitted from Winry's lips, as she lay in her cell. Her dark thoughts, continued the darkening downward swirl into self-pity and despair.

Her blonde hair which shone in stark contrast against the dingy gray of the threadbare prison pillow case, shifted as she turned her head to unconsciously seek a more comfortable position from which to batter her already bruised self-confidence.

Winry's mind, although back for long enough to alter her sleep-like breathing, was once-again far from the bleak cell in which her body was stuck.

She felt doomed to have her need for comfort be overshadowed by Ed, who needed it so much more than her throughout thier lives.

Less than 2 years after aiding in Ed's automail surgery... at 12 years old, Winry embarked on her first trip to a big city, Central, all by herself. She was so happy, and felt very accomplished. She had argued with her grandmother non-stop for 2 weeks to gain the privilege of going on her own.

The train-ride was long and boring, but filled with her anticipation of suprising Ed and Al. She imagined the fun they could have on their own in the city. She resisted the urge to write ahead, knowing she could get her own transport to the base. She had called ahead to make sure he was in the city, but wanted to suprise Ed and Al.

Everything had gone perfectly. That is, until she was waiting for Ed to be notified of her arrival. She'd been sitting for over a half hour cursing Ed's tardiness.

And what happens? A psycho with a wig and a feminism physique plays on her fascination of her... _**his **_ice truck and locks her inside, takes her to a meat house, and tells her exactally how he planned to rape her during and after the many ways he can slice her up.

Winry could not remember a terror as real as the cold feeling her limbs were paralyzed with in those few hours.

Then, when the killer dragged an unconsciousness Ed into the cold meat room, Winry was more terrified for her friend than for herself. Her curse in life is to care more about others well-being than her own. She was simultaneously impressed and touched that he'd managed to track her this far, but unsure what he could do.

When Ed managed to escape she was both thrilled and frightened that he would leave her.

The military showed up before she had to find out, and Winry heard Al comforting a distraught Ed from a short distance away. Winry, dangling in chains, was completely forgotten in the face of Ed's own fright. He never even once looked up at her to see if she was all right as Al escorted him out of the building.

The chains were eventually cut and Winry was quickly let down by a nice man in a military uniform. He was very tall with a nicely trimmed blonde mustache. He examined her wrists and made some motions to the paramedics who applied some salve and bandages. The man then lead her away from the scene, kindly getting a blanket to drape over her aching shoulders. Her blue eyes never left Ed's crumbling form, silently begging him, to look at her just one time, as she struggled with the surreal feeling of everything that had just happened.

Winry stood a long time, her silent pleas unanswered, while the military officers worked around her, shouting orders. She continued to gaze silently at Ed, hysterically crying next to Al; unable to move forward to comfort him knowing that she would be pushed away. Her heart bled for him, even as she teetered on the edge of hysteria herself. Teetered but did not fall, as usual.

There was no one to comfort her. The military officers were kind, but far from comforting. They eventually pulled her away from her silent vigil and asked questions of her. Most of the questions were easy to answer. Some of the more... vulgar things of her encounter she kept to herself. She didn't think she could repeat some of the things the killer had said to her. She didn't even understand parts of it, but the intent behind his promises was not to be questioned. The soldiers listened half-heartedly, obviously not needing her testimony, but unwilling to let her go without obtaining it.

They swiftly wrapped up and left her to her own devises shortly after.

When Winry finally left the makeshift office they'd procured of nearby cafe, Ed and Al were nowhere to be seen. When she asked she was told they'd gone back to their dorm.

Not knowing where it was, Winry left her hotel room number with one of the officers who promised to get the message to "Major Elric", Winry returned, alone, to her hotel room, trying to keep her self-pity at bay.

The next day, Winry tried hard not to care that SHE was the one that had to track down her friends. And that neither Ed nor Al asked her about what had happened to her when in Barry's possession. It was like that didn't ask because they didn't really want to know.

Ed simply expected her to forget it – for her to be strong enough not to need to be coddled. Winry understood that his "shopping spree" was as good as his "apology" that he didn't have the time for her problems too. He had his and Al's problems, which were more than his share and far too much for a boy to be expected to carry. Yet he did it, so who was SHE to be upset that he couldn't take care of her too?

Thinking back... Winry was startled to realize that Mustang had also been there that day. She didn't know him at the time, but as she looked back, she could remember his stern expression softening only once when he looked over at Ed. He had seemed... almost paternal.

Winry scoffed. Figures. The man takes HER parents and then acts like he's ED'S father.

He really did deserve what he got.

However, despite her resolute and accepted mind voice, Winry's body reacted suddenly to the idea that she had ended his life. A vision of the blood spraying from the bullet wound overwhelmed her senses until she could again taste the metallic tang of the blood that had gotten in her mouth as he fell.

She had been appropriately covered in the crimson liquid and with her face frozen in a slack-jawed expression of surprise, which after catching up to what happened, quickly morphed to terror. She was sure she made quite a sight to the officers who first entered the room.

She tried to push the image from her mind... the pool of blood soaking the carpet – his dark black hair matted with blood, tissue, and skull fragments... She thought that after so much time she'd be able to think of it without feeling sick.

However, against her more logical side, bile rose in the back of her throat and she was forced to sit up. Wrapping the blanket around her – to protect her from the cold floor, Winry threw herself on her knees in front of the toilet.

Before she even had a chance to lift the seat, the small bit of dinner she had managed down earlier came up in a forceful lurch. Not convinced it was empty, her stomach insisted on several more heaves, until a bitter yellowish substance was forced into the toilet bowl.

Panting, Winry wiped her mouth and spat several times trying to rid herself of the horrible taste.

She assumed she'd gotten over this. His life was hardly worth the tears she'd already cried. He'd taken so much from so many people... but she still couldn't hate him. Anymore than she could forgive herself. She had ended his life... the carreer Huges had fought so hard to enhance... the person Hawkeye fought so hard to protect... Gone in the blink of an eye.

A sudden heat burned behind her eyes, as Winry lie back on her bed, tugging her sheet over her blanket in attempts to warm herself up from a chill caused by more than the cold cell. The prickling sensation signified the onslaught of tears.

Winry brought her hands up to and pressed them to her eyes. NO more tears... hadn't she cried enough? For him? For her? For things that couldn't be changed by tears?

How many more could she take?

The pressure of trying to hold them back made her feel like she was on the verge of exploding.

Pressing the palms of her hands hard against her closed eyes, waves of red static flooded her vision. Against her will the red of Ed's cloak filled her mind.

Ed.

His annoying cluelessness. Knowing that KNEW, once upon a time, what it was to be kind and sweet was torture. Remembering when he treated others like they existed. Treated, her, like she existed. When he was just a normal boy and not a young man on a crusade to fix a horrible mistake he and his brother had made.

Ed had at some point, unknown to Winry, determined her not worth his time – and even an obstacle to his path. And she, her feelings, concern, questions, friendship were brushed off as if of no more consequence than a fly.

He purposefully pushed her away from him, any offer of comfort – any offer of help, at every chance. As if she were not doing everything she could to be useful to him. As if she didn't dedicate her life to trying to help him accomplish his life's goal.

Ed never gave any promises – always took what she would give him and then took off running the other way. And she was the fool, the one who knew that was all it would ever be but still put herself through it. The one who would answer his every call. The one who loved him so much that it hurt. It hurt to know that he'd never be capable of loving her back the same way.

It just wasn't in his make-up. Not anymore. Maybe it had been... one time. Or maybe she'd gotten so good at fooling herself she was unaware that what she loved was only an exaggerated dream. An ideal that he never was and no one could expect him to be.

She know understood what Ed's mother had said the one time Winry caught her crying...

"Miss Trisha, what's wrong? Are you hurt?" a very concerned 8 year old Winry cried as she happened upon Trisha, on her way to find the Elric brothers. The woman was staring blankly at the sheet she had recently hung to dry in the backyard. Wracking sobs shook her figure as tears poured down her face.

The chestnut-haired woman pulled her apron up to dry her face and stifled her sobs as she offered the young blonde a watery smile.

"No I'm not hurt." She reassured the girl, pulling her into a hug that the girl seemed to need as much or more than the woman did.

Winry's brows and a frown creased her normally smooth face, buried in Trisha's shoulder. "But, if you're not hurt then why are you crying?" She asked, pulling back from the embrace.

Trisha paused a moment and debated brushing the girl off. But her clear blue eyes, so much like her friend Sara's... bore into hers with determination.

"Promise not to tell the boys?" Trisha smiled gently, as she kneeled in the grass.

Winry nodded eagerly. Selfishly happy to have a girl to share secrets the way the boys sometimes did from her. "I promise." She repeated solemnly.

"I miss their dad." Trisha replied honestly. "I wish he would come home soon."

Winry's wide eyes gave away her disbelief.

"What?" Trisha asked.

"Well... it's just... didn't he leave you?" Winry paused looking at her feet a second as if unsure to continue. "Ed says... that."

Instead of getting angry at Winry, Trisha smiled.

"They're so much alike you know." Trisha looked around as if checking to make sure the boys were still out of sight. "Actually, he asked me, before he left, if I would wait for him." Trisha's gaze left Winry's face and returned to the distant horizon.

"But... why would you do that if it makes you so sad?" Winry questioned.

"Because I love him." Trisha answered.

"How can you love him so much when he hurts you?"

It was a long moment before Trisha answered as if she were searching for the answer deep within herself.

"Sometimes, Winry, the people we love the most have to leave us. And it hurts when they do. But it would hurt more to keep them from their path, because they would always wonder about what could have happened if they'd just gone a little further... tried a little harder. Do you understand?" She asked Winry.

Winry nodded slowly trying to understand and Trish continued.

"Eventually that yearning and regret would grow as big as the happiness you feel when you're together and when that happened it would start to ruin the happiness. Captive happiness is not true happiness." Trisha smiled and looked back down at Winry.

Winry's face light up... "Yea – I remember something from school... um... I think it goes... 'If you love something let it go...'" she trailed off her face screwed up on concentration as she tried to remember the rest.

"'If it comes back to you, it's yours.'" Trisha finished. "It's one of my favorite proverbs. But I don't remember reading it until I was much older." She looked at Winry who was blushing.

"Well... I sometimes borrow books from school that the older kids are reading because... the one's they give us are so boring!"

"What a smart girl you are!" Trisha complimented.

"Well..." Winry fumbled, "We all do... me an' Ed an' Al. But they're usually... different ones. I like poetry, but all they think about is math and alchemy."

"Boys like different things than girls, Winry. But just you wait and see. Soon enough, you'll all be old enough to experience true love, and then you'll understand what I'm saying from your heart and not just your head."

Winry nodded, although she didn't understand what Trisha meant.

Back in her cell, Winry thought she understood, but it was far from the lesson Trisha was trying to teach.

What Winry understood was that sometimes you couldn't wait the time you needed to for someone to return fully. Sometimes it hurt more to see the person you loved in front of you than when he was away. Because feeling so deeply for someone who would never return those feelings hurt worse when he was around.

She felt like she'd let her love go before she'd even had it.

Ed, the way he was now, was incapable of love. He was too bogged down by responsibility and guilt to see anything good for himself.

No matter how she tried, Ed was constantly pushing her away. Any attempt she made to see him separately, were casually ignored or pointedly refused depending on how much she insisted. And it had nothing to do with their ever-looming quest.

Al would set aside time just for Winry. After he was bound to the armor... even after he and Ed began their journey. Al would take time out to see her. He wouldn't tell her much, but they did talk.

But all Ed would do is brood. He'd rather sulk than converse with her.

She'd come across him playing chess with Granny a few times, which made her furious. But whenever it was just the Ed and Winry, and it didn't directly relate to his automail, he clammed up and usually left quickly.

Was it wrong of her to be jealous of the fact that he and Al spent most of their time together... without her?

Probably. After everything Al lost, was his brother's dedication too much for him to ask for?

But still would it KILL the elder Elric to treat her with some humanity every once and a while?

Winry tried to stop the downward spiral of her mood and thoughts... but more and more proof of his brusque treatment piled on top of her.

It was never enough... SHE was never enough... never good enough to spend any time with... never smart enough to know how to approach him... never pretty enought for him to look twice at her... never skilled enough to fix his automail so that it wouldn't break...

Before she knew what she was doing, Winry noticed that she had begun to pick at a frayed seam in her sheet. In seconds, her strong, dexterous hands had torn free a two-inch wide strip the length of the sheet.

Perplexed at how easy it was... a dark thought she'd been pushing around for a long time resurfaced suddenly. The very thought that brought her to Mustang's office seemed, again, a possibility. Backed by all her depressing thoughts, Winry's mind spun as she glanced once at the camera.

She could do this... end the pain. With a real smile – something her face hadn't formed naturally for some time – she began tearing another strip.

_tbc...

* * *

_OK – quick apologies – I hope you're not too overly annoyed with my continued cliffhangers. ;D They're not intentional, I swear! This story came out a little less 'linear' than I meant and I've been trying to catch up to my characters. I'm almost there though. I have the last chapter – yup you heard me THE FABLED LAST CHAPTER about 75 percent done. Just the final touches and editing so you won't have to wait... **cringe**... a month for the next update, I promise. 

Specialy thanks to everyone who's taken the time to leave me a review. Your input is invaluable and greatly appreciated!

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Winry's psyche. Keeping in mind this is ANIME-BASED. Ta!


	9. The End of Innocence

_**Maintenance**_

By Suzi aka KatsyKat

Chapter 9 - The End of Innocence

ahem Angst – you know the category? - well it's not just for show kiddies. Brace yourself.

Back to my favorite – Ed's POV

Remember - since it's been so long) that he's running to Winry's cell after learning the truth from Mustang.

* * *

She can't... 

My thought process had deteriorated as I skidded in front of the first checkpoint of the prison wing. The rubber soles of my black boots squealed in protest at the sudden stop on highly polished linoleum. Two cadets snapped to attention at my approach.

A flash of my infamous watch got me access to the deeper halls, no problem.

My boots resumed their mad dash through the double doors and across checkered floors to my destination of Winry's cell.

As I approached death row the growing feeling of despair rose sharply in my stomach. Weighed down by the all too familiar feeling of guilt... The pressure was incredible... I felt like I was going to explode – and a hundred pounds would spray out in its haste to get away from my churning guts.

Heart racing, I eyed the several officers, growing as I neared. They were conversing solemnly at the final checkpoint, but all stopped talking to look at me as I dashed to their desk.

I threw my watch on the counter hard enough to see the dent in the hard wood countertop.

"I need access... to question Winry... Rockbell in regards to a matter... of great importance... to the state." I demanded, trying to sound as official as I could between the pants of air my oxygen-starved lungs demanded.

"I'm sorry, sir." The only woman among them spoke in a stern voice, her hair was in a light brown bob cut which bounced slightly as she saluted me at attention. Her rank identified her as a warrant officer. The other's, Sergeant's or lower, followed suit as she continued to address me. "There are no visitations permitted at this time... for any reason."

Her voice was soft, but firm, reminding me slightly of Hawkeye's no-nonsense tone. Her determined green eyes were absolute, even as she showed me the respect befitting my higher rank. I knew immediately that I would not be smart-talking my way past her.

I returned the salute officially, pondering if for only a second how seldom I took the ritual seriously. I only did so now hoping to earn some brownie points. I used the time between snapping my arm up and releasing the gesture to sum up the four soldiers. I saw similar expressions of resolve on each of their faces. They were not going to be swayed by my small authority.

Damn loyal dogs.

"Where is your commanding officer?" I demanded of the soldiers in a stern controlled voice I used to sound older than my 16 years. They looked uneasily between themselves before one reluctantly responded.

"Our commanding office is tending an urgent matter."

"This IS an urgent matter! I'm talking about life and death!" I cried, unable to resist stomping one foot and throwing my hands, now fisted with one tightly gripping my watch, down to my sides.

I didn't want to be so observant to their reactions to my words.

I didn't want to see the young red-headed officer lose all color in his face at my words.

I didn't want to watch the lips thin on the tallest man, as he exchanged a heavy look with his partner.

I didn't want to notice the pained expression that flitted across the woman's face.

I didn't want to understand that like good soldiers they all schooled their expressions into a calm neutral facade within seconds, because they knew I had bore witness to their momentary lapse.

I didn't want to know what caused it.

But whether I wanted to or not... I put the pieces together a little too neatly.

Something had happened, and it was bad.

Barely containing the panicked expression that fought to overtake my scowl, I sprinted to the left – dodging my way around the two guards in front of the desk.

I had to see Winry – she HAD to be alright!

Hearing the surprised shouts of the guards behind me, I grinned despite myself. They were much too slow. It wasn't the first time I'd managed to get the upper hand on a chase because of my speed.

Clapping my hands and throwing them to the ground I raised a solid concrete wall behind me. I could hear the frantic calls for backup as they were effectively stopped, but I was beyond caring.

Let them come... they can arrest me, just as soon as I see Winry's face and talk to her for two minutes... that's it. It's all I need...

A desperate fantasy of whisking Winry away – however illogical and unpractical – filled my already racing mind, before being discarded as utterly ridiculous. With Mustang awake they would surely revoke her sentence.

My racing footsteps echoed loudly in the concrete enclosed hallway, and the irony of the fact that just yesterday I was running AWAY from this cell with almost as much desperation as I had now, struck me.

I turned the corner, barely slowing – and almost plowed directly into Lieutenant Hawkeye. Both her and my reflexes were the only things that kept our heads from colliding painfully.

As it was I spun into the opposite wall, my automail arm rammed the concrete with a ringing thud.

Hawkeye placed a hand on the opposite wall to steady herself and looked at me with sad sienna eyes.

I raised my face to hers, stopped momentarily in my mindless run to Winry's cell.

The lieutenant opened her mouth to speak and I was overcome with dread about what she was going to say.

I did the only thing I knew how – I interrupted her.

"Look – I know I'm in trouble." I rambled. "And I promise I'll go peacefully – I don't want any trouble. I just... you need to know... about Winry..." my breath hitched as I saw her eye brows furrow. I hurried on before she could say anything.

"Mustang told me... Winry..."

Riza's eyes widened further... "Roy told you? Roy Mustang? He's awake?" I hated the hope in her voice, as if forgetting my own excitement regarding his consciousness, only minutes ago.

I detested the rising excitement that seeped out, despite her normally cool and level tone. It wasn't fair for her to have hope about her friend and me not get the same... Still, I knew there was no getting past the topic now. If I wanted information on Winry... Perhaps I could use this to my advantage.

"He is!" I cried, "He really is. You know I wouldn't make that up! He woke up a few minutes ago... and there's been a huge misunderstanding! I NEED to see Winry right now!"

The devastation that broke across her face sealed it for me... I pushed past her – ignoring her cry... I think she called my name, but I was halfway down the hall.

I skidded to a stop, my mind in a numbing blur... the cell was empty.

Funny that as bare as the cell seemed before, without the sole occupant it was a hundred fold more deserted feeling.

I piled hundreds of reasons as to why she could be gone... shower – physical examination – cell inspection –a last minute court appointment... each excuse was crazier than the last...

Until finally I felt a hand come down on my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry." Lieutenant Hawkeye's voice was more somber than I'd ever heard it. "By the time the guards found her, there was nothing we could do."

The guilt crashed upon me before I knew it was coming. It was my fault – I knew it was. It had happened shortly after I spoke with her. She'd been in here for weeks before that. And then I came along...

Without even knowing how, I'd made everything worse for her... again.

Running our talk through my head, I could see so many clues. So many hints I'd ignored. She'd been pleading with me – in the only way she knew how to ask for help... indirectly. And I was a failure of a friend for not noticing – for not putting it together sooner, just... just a little earlier.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that there was a far away buzzing sound... I tried to silence my train of thoughts and I realized the sound was actually Hawkeye was talking to me. I tried to listen through a growing feeling of detachedness... her words about a rope torn from the sheets... a metal piece in a hair band... picking the lock on the glass the camera was in... setting the camera to loop footage... none of it felt real. And, at the same time, it was too real. Only Winry was capable of executing that elaborate a plan.

I don't remember falling, but the next thing I knew I was on the floor staring at the cell in front of me. There was a sharp pain in my right knee as if I'd bashed it against the concrete floor.

I do remember pressing my face into the bars as if squeezing it painfully between them could stop the hot tears from streaming unchecked down my face. I made no noise... the sobs caught painfully in my chest as if caught behind the lump in my throat.

I don't know how long I sat there, or how many people came to talk to me. I do know that when they tried to forcibly pick me up and make me leave my uncomfortable position, I swung wildly at the unfortunate individual with my automail arm.

The painful cry as it collided with something solid barely registered through my daze.

I maintained my position, as if by staying frozen I could keep the burning pain around my heart and stomach from spreading and eating me alive.

I know that they called Al – and he came to me with his voice so broken,

"Brother!... Winry..." he cried as he approached. I pushed away his embrace.

Seeing him made me angry. Not at him, but at myself. He didn't even get a chance to see Winry... to help her. I had ruined it. I had...

I began yelling at him. Not so much at him, but at myself, at the world.

The words tumbled from my mouth, completely uncontrolled. I have no idea what I was saying. I felt my mouth moving, I saw the reactions of those around me, I felt my vocal cords straining... but I can not remember a single word that passed from my lips.

Seeing expressions that ranged from sympathetic to hurt to horrified brought me somewhat back to reality. Enough to notice that quite some time must have gone by because the number of people present had doubled. Better than 20 people eagerly crowded the hallway outside of the cell. Some I recognized and others I didn't. I strained to listen through a ringing louder than my own thoughts at what I was saying, and was unsucussful.

My tunnel vision opened enough to recognize a doctor in a white coat had joined the ranks. I noticed a hushed conversation with Hawkeye and saw her shout my way.

Before I could put together what she was saying, I felt the cold unyielding arms of Al wrap around my arms and chest.

It was easy to forget how much stronger than me Al had become with the binding of his soul to the armor. Partly, I'm sure, because even when we sparred he held back so as not to hurt me. And it probably helped that we rarely fought for real and when we did, we chose to express our anger through words and alchemy rather than fists.

Still, it was a very real reminder to be crushed in the metal embrace of my younger brother. He had lurched at me suddenly – deliberately – and caught me off guard. He towered over me, effortlessly keeping even my automail my limbs immobile while the white-coated doctor closed in with a stern, if not solemn, face and a needle in one hand.

I felt cheated. Sure Al often held me back from my various fits of temper. But never did he conspire against me to hold me down. He had never aided someone else in actually restraining me. We were a team - unbroken by the world around us... until now.

The betrayal ran deep, burning my veins, giving me one last surge of strength against his grasp. How dare Al be so calm in the face of that happened?!? Wasn't he as outraged as me? I felt it a disservice to Winry's memory that he wasn't in hysterics. With a strength borne of my righteousness, my arms raised a little and I nearly slipped free.

I felt the small satisfaction of watching the fleeting look of fear that crossed the doctors startled face; as I lunged in his direction until Al redoubled his grip and I was forced, once again, into a growling submission.

I wasn't even screaming anymore. My rage went beyond words. I scarcely had time to curse my weakness, in the familiar outlet of blaming my size. I barely felt prick of the needle. I hadn't even verbally bashed Al for his treachery when I blacked out.

My last coherent thought, before darkness claimed me, was that no one here had any idea how I felt. I'd lost the woman I loved before I'd ever even told her. And it was all my fault.

It was a mentality I would cling to for the rest of my life.

To this day, decades later, I have never loved another woman the way I loved Winry. She lingers as a constant reminder than machines aren't the only thing in life that need maintenance.

People need it much more.

And when they don't get it... they break; sometimes in ways that can't be fixed.

I understand, through more therapy than I'm willing to admit to, that some people will break regardless. No amount of love can fix a person... but it helps.

I know from personal experience that if Al hadn't been with me, I never would have recovered from Winry's death. His never changing devotion to my mental state was like salve to a wound… or maybe oil to an engine.

I will probably always feel that if I'd realized this simple fact sooner, the world wouldn't have lost one of the best people that was cursed to be born within it.

But if I've learned anything from this cruel world, it's that we can't do anything for the dead... except keep them in our hearts and learn to move forward on two legs... be they our own, or someone else's.

_the end

* * *

_

I meant the end sentence to be a double meaning on the fact that Winry's auotmail leg is the one he walks on literally, and Al leant him the emotional support to get through her death. I hope that wasn't too confusing.

I KNOW the end's a bit, abrupt, in comparison to the rest of the story. Honestly, this is how it was supposed to end from day one, and although the plot grew and grew and grew out of control – the ending just didn't. I simply couldn't do anything to it without changing what it WAS.

I'm sorry it's such a sad note, but the Winry in my story was just too far gone to turn back. Thank you THANK YOU **THANK YOU **to everyone who took the time to review. You comments kept me going through this MUCH longer than anticipated story. As any author knows the greatest gift they can get is people who leave productive comments about their stories – be they good or bad.

Thank you, also, for reading this far. That – with the length this story demanded to be – is a feat in and of itself. :D Now, I'm off to something a little more light-hearted. Ja!


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